Once again, we find ourselves getting ready for the insanity that is NaNoWriMo. If you've never heard of it, NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month. That means in the span of thirty days, participants will write 50,000 words.

That's:

1,667 words per day if they're writing every day. 2,273 words per day if they're only writing on weekdays. 6,250 words per day if they're only writing on weekends.

Either way it's a pretty hefty feat, and not something to walk into unprepared. Even if you're a "by the seat of your pants" type of writer.

Which is where planning and plotting come in. Sure, if you're a pantser, you can sit down and bang out a couple chapters, maybe a whole book, but can you do it in a month? Probably not. At least not without a little bit of preparation. For all the pantsers and everyone else, compiled here is a short list of things to keep in mind, ways to prepare, what not to dos.

Let's start with the most important: PLANNING

Instead of giving you the long and winded version, let us cheat and just link to some really awesome deviations that can explain it so much better:

What should you be doing before and during NaNo?

Here are some tips to help you focus on your writing and keep you motivated to continue on even when you're having a brain fart.

Have a story you want to work on. Something you're excited about. You're stuck with these characters for the month. Make sure you like them. Or at the very least, like torturing them.

Know your characters. Make them friends. Even your villain. You wanna know everything there is to know about your characters BEFORE NaNo starts. Otherwise, you may find yourself a little lost after the first few chapters.

Be consistent. It's a marathon, not a sprint! Don't try to bang out 10,000 words in the first day. You'll burn yourself out!

Figure on not working Thanksgiving (for the Americans), and figure some off days for the rest of the world. You're not gonna end up writing every day for the entire month. Plan your time wisely. Know what days you have doctor appointments or previous engagements and work around them.

Treat Yourself. Write for half an hour and then nom a small yummy treat. Repeat.

Write on schedule. Writing at the same time will train your brain to want to write and be most creative at that time. This is effective even when not trying to do NaNo.

Spend a little bit of time before NaNo starts figuring out how, when and where you're going to write. Don't try and figure out your perfect setup on November 1st because it'll be too late. Know where you're gonna sit, how you're gonna have your prep material setup, what will help get the words flowing out of your head and into your finger tips.

A blog or side diary to track progress and keep your mind sane.

@ is your best friend. When you're stuck on a description, dialogue passage, character reaction or pretty much anything just type @ and then what you want to include there. Examples: @description @name @dialogue. Then once you figure out how you're going to handle that part just search for the @ sign in your word processor. This works for both NaNo and regular writing.

Make sure your research is done before November hits. Otherwise it'll be your excuse to stave off writing. And that's bad.

Word Wars and Write Ins. They're a grand place to get lots of words down. I'll be running a few chat events in the CRLiterature chatroom. So keep an eye out for the chat schedule which should be coming out soon.

Make sure the people you live with know you're doing NaNo. This way they won't be offended when you're completely ignoring them. If you have small kids, make sure you have a spouse to take care of them [if you don't, quick, you still have a couple weeks to snag one] or family/friends that are willing to help out.

And above all else, have fun. There is no reason to stress over NaNo. It's supposed to be fun and challenging. Not heart attack inducing.

What Not to Do

Don't get sucked in Wikipedia, TVtropes or any other sites like that. In fact turn off your WiFi so the internet isn't a distraction. All your research should be done before NaNo, so this shouldn't be an issue. If you REALLY need to use the internet, have one specific task in mind and as soon as you're done with that, close the browser window.

Don't stress if you miss a day. Just tack a little extra onto the next four days' goals and you'll be back on track. If you miss a week, you may be in trouble. This is where having a schedule comes in handy. No not a schedule of what time you're going to write, but knowing days you will definitely be writing and what days you'll be unable to due to prior engagements.

Don't edit as you go. Write what you write and leave it at that. There'll be plenty of time later to edit. But during November, DO NOT edit anything that you write. You'll get stuck editing and not writing.

Don't worry about the quality of the writing. The goal is to get 50k words down. Editing word choice and grammar will come later.

Don't be discouraged after the first week when the words aren't flowing as smoothly as they were at the start. It's called a plateau, and you have to force yourself through it. Consider jumping a couple scenes ahead if need be.

I'm Stuck! What do I do?!

Your brain has been attacked by the evilness that is writers' block or brain freeze. Obviously, this isn't a good thing during NaNo, so you're just gonna have to work yourself through it. I'm a firm believer in just sitting there and writing whatever comes to mind until you get back into the groove, but here are a couple ideas that come from other deviants on how to get out of that rut your brain just fell into.

Death by Shovel. Take a character (any one will do) and kill them with a shovel. That should get things moving along. Natural disaster. Mother Nature is a bitch. Let her wreak havoc on your characters. Storm of the century style! Step back and write a quickie flash fiction scene of something that's been floating around in your head. Get that out and then get back to work. Even if these scenes aren't used in your final product or even toward your NaNo word count. They're great ways to get your creative juices flowing and those words flowing on to the screen. Change your location. Not your story location. Your ACTUAL location. Go somewhere else. If you usually write indoors, try going outside. If staying at home isn't an option, go to a local park, your public library, a coffee house. A different place will spark fresh ideas simply because you're in new surroundings.

You Mentioned Chat Events?

That's right! I'm still finalizing the details on the chat events schedule. But I do know I'll be hosting a PreNano Chat on the 30th! So, if you're not already watching, add CRLiterature to your devWATCH now to keep up to date!

AND...don't forget to add your name to our poll so you can receive motivating notes and be kept in the loop for all the NaNo fun!

This is my first time too. It helps me to remember that, even if I don't finish my novel this month, I can still continue my writing after NaNo, and be better prepared next year! We'll just do our best!

You can do whatever you wish after NaNo is over. If it's something you're interested in publishing or posting on dA, by all means edit away. If you're "meh" at the end of NaNo, put it in a scrap folder on your computer so that in fifteen years you find it, have no idea what it's about, but read it and love it anyway.

I was dead inside a bad writers block the first time I found nano. For me I will always love it, because it gave me back the ability to write, anything at all, and since I cherish and flourish with a poetic stream-of-consciousness style, it works for me.

The community in the forums is fun too, and it gives me a chuckle to see how people swap ideas of wordpadding. In the end, if it's not fun for you, try something else and may blessings rain down like ink and tiny typewriters.

Then adjust NaNo to work for you. If you know your school schedule won't allow you to get 50k down without terrorizing your body, change it to 25k in addition to doing awesome on all your school assignments!

You managed to work the Traveling Shovel of Death into your post...the NaNo Gods will be pleased.

This will be NaNo number 12 for me. I am undefeated so far. I'm going to try to break my word count record (71,000) this year, hopefully reaching 100,000 before the end of the month.

For everyone intrigued by the notion of writing an entire novel in a month, I would say go for it. After 11 times, there's still nothing like the rush that comes with seeing that 50,000th word roll across your screen. Even if you don't get there, it's still amazing to see people, settings and situations come to life out of nothingness.

Check out www.nanowrimo.org to register (it's free!) and join us in our quest to write novels at ludicrous speeds.

I have participated seven times and won five years running...I'm so excited that November is almost here! I'm so glad you included death by shovel (AKA the travelling shovel of death)...that has been INSTRUMENTAL for a lot of people I race in November (and I do reccomend finding a friend and battling it out...trash talk is the BEST motivator!). I am going to argue that you don't HAVE to have a plan...research mid-month can help jump-start your novel if youre stuck, as can the ever inspiring and occasionally absurd online plot generator. But for first time wrimos, II'd say that's generally a good idea. I usually start with a first line/scene or strong character that comes to me in a divine stroke sometime before November...its coming late this year but I'm not worried best of luck to all participating!

I tried my first Nano in 2011. While the participation was quite fun, maybe, after editing, I realized that about 90% of it was complete bullshit. I just couldn't write this way. Probably not going to participate again this year.

Aye. Many parts of it was actually more of an exercise in word vomit than actual quality writing. While it's probably a good habit to try and write some kind of nonsense on a daily basis, it's not quite that productive if I'm trying for anything close to quality work.

I find that I write more if I have a clear idea of what I want to get out, in mind, rather than trying to set a fixed amout of words to get out, by the end of a writing session. Hence, I tend to break my longer stories in scenes. Which works better too, I write a lot of my "stories" out, in the form of scripts. It just works better for me, regardless of whether it is Nano, or the now-defunct Script Frenzy.

I agree. I try to work scenes instead of chapters. Chapters are daunting to me, so knowing that there's just this scene I need to write and then I can combine a bunch of scenes together later to make a chapter...not so daunting.

I always end up with the dilemma of having many many scenes, a decent beginning, a pretty satisfying ending, and either too many, or not enough middle parts to link them from one to another though. Maybe that's just because I'm disorganized though. However, I think it might be because I like writing certain types of scenes too much, and frankly, I'm not too good with all the rest that I normally gloss over. Def need to work on it! Haha.

In the last two weeks I wrote about 8,700 words per weekend trying to work on my written part of my comic project. So I have about 17,000 words Already written. However, school has increased its workload, I may not be able to completely fill this 50,000 words just yet.

So when is this marathon? I am sorta more than ready once I find my story files that I have been working on. I found only one of my files and they have over 18000 words alone. This will be a good opertunity to do a creative writing journal.

Last year was the first time I dipped my toes into the insanity and hit 30,000 words. This time I am getting better prepared and am motivated even more to meet the challenge. I am going to hit the 50,000 word count for my 50th Birthday on Dec. 1. It will be a great gift to myself and a nice wrap up for this year of challenges.